Fall Of The Necromancer Scenario 2: In The Nick Of Time

After multiple delays Stan and I finally got down to playing the second scenario of the Fall Of The Necromancer campaign.

In the second scenario the forces of the necromancer are on the offensive against the elves of Mirkwood while the forces of Elrond half-elven rush to their aid.  Will the wood elves hold out?  Will Elrond's forces arrive in-time?  Will I remember to use the Sentinels special abilities before the thrid turn?  Let`s find out.....

Turn 1
The basic deployment is Wood Elves set up within 12" of the northern table edge, the Necromancer`s forces set up in the middle of the table and the forces of Elrond advancing in from the southern board edge.  The goal is to knock the oppoenents force below 25% of it's starting model count.

The forces of darkness advance on the Wood Elves



Turn 2
I started off by being very aggresive with my Sentinels, immediately running one of Stan`s giant spiders off the table.  Unfortunately this did a great job of reminding Stan to kill my Sentinels as quickly as possible a task he set to with immediate effect.  As painful as the loss of my Sentinels was in the early turns Stan's biggest offensive punch came from his Wargs.

Trust me there were alot more elves in this area before this picture was taken



Turns 3-4
I was racking up a decent body count with my elven soldiers but inspite of using 2 heroics charges (a new mechanic in The Hobbit edition of Lord Of The Rings) Elrond was still taking his sweet time getting to the fight.  Stan and I were running pretty much even for casualties which meant I was going to run out of troops before he did.

Khamul The Easterling protected by his elite bodyguard of pincushions

 

 

Turn 5



Thranduil was doing a great job of holding off the orc horde almost single-handedly which almost made up for the terrible rolls I was getting from Legolas.  During his advance across the table Elrond had has his stores of might, will, fate and wounds sorely drainned and it looked like he was not going to turn out to be the saviour of Mirkwood after all.

Thranduil`s (second) last stand



Turn 6
After fighting off a half-dozen members of Stan`s army completely unsupported for 3 turns Thranduil finally fell.  In the meantime Khamul had gotten so tired of waiting for Elrond to show up that he sent some of his faster moving forces to engage him directly.  In his weakend state Elrond was no match for the monsters of Dol Guldur and after fending them off for one turn he too was laid low.

Thanks for coming Elrond...next time ride a horse or something!

 

 

Conclusions



Another fantastic game, this time I came out on the short end.  In hindsight I would key on 2 gross tactical errors I made that I never truly recovered from.
The first-I should have rushed the Wood Elves up (even though it would have cost me more casualties the first 2 turns) to hold the bad guys in the center of the table.  It would have meant taking alot more damage early on but would have put me in a much better position to engage with Elrond`s forces sooner.
The second-I have alot more experience playing the bad guys in LOTR than the elves and the thing I kept forgetting is that while advancing across the table if I had put my spearmen in front becuase they are equipped with shields they actually have a higher defence rating than my sword armed elves.

Oh well live and learn.  The important thing is that I had a great time playing and I look forward to my next game against Stan and his....wait....Castellans Of Dol Guldur....that can`t be good...

-Jay